Nightsong- A Batty Must Read Mentor Text

"Chiro's mother sends him off into the night for the first time alone. It's an adventure, but how will he find his way? And how will he find his way home? As the young bat discovers, navigating the world around him is easy as long as he uses his good sense. This beautiful and touching coming-of-age story, with mesmerizing artwork from New York Timesbestselling illustrator Loren Long and lyrical text from Ari Berk, conveys a heartwarming and universal message: No matter how far away you go, you can always find your way home."

You can teach so many important skills using this book!

1. Vocabulary- this book is full of rich vocabulary! Here are some examples: twitching, admitted, girths, gleefully. Make an anchor chart of important vocabulary- you can have students use context clues and the illustrations to help them determine the meaning of the words. Or, have students work in groups to look up words in the dictionary (always great to get some dictionary practice!)

2. Inference- there are tons of inference opportunities! Stop at various points in the story to make inferences about how Chiro is feeling. Have students use text evidence to support their inferences. Also, let students make inferences about where Chiro is as he is exploring the world- what are the long arms he refers to?

3. Dialogue and Quotation Marks- great conversation between Chiro and his mom! Students love to use dialogue in their writing, but they often struggle with using it effectively. The author provides excellent examples of dialogue. Create a dialogue anchor chart and analyze how the author used dialogue- there are great dialogue tags! Review proper punctuation with quotation marks too!

4. Illustrations- I also love love love the illustrations by Loren Long! They are breathtaking! Talk to your students about how the illustrations affect the story- How do the illustrations help you understand the story from Chiro's point of view? Discuss with your students how reading a picture can be just as important as reading the words.

I hope you and your students get to check out this amazing text!
Thank you for stopping by to browse our Must Read Mentor Text for the week!

2 comments:

I saw you dropped by for a visit today, and it reminded me that today is Monday, and you know what Monday means, right! I had to comment because this is a new title for me. Last year, I did bats as a theme one week, so I think I will go back to that post and add a link back to this post as this book looks really great. Kind of reminds me of Stellaluna. Well, I suppose all bat books could do that. :-) Thanks for the tip.Carla

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